Tagged: Funds Transfer

NTH :: Transfer funds sans recipient’s bank account info

Mayur Shetty, TNN | Jan 7, 2015, 01.08AM IST | Times of India

The bank is building a host of services around its mobile applications. One feature allows customers to send money to contacts even without any information about recipient’s bank details.

NTH

MUMBAI: The rapid adoption of mobile banking and banking apps is prompting bankers to forecast a complete transformation in the manner in which banking is done in two years. Besides the predominance of the mobile platform, end-to-end digitization will allow acquisition of customers online and analytics would help targeted marketing.

“We are seeing a big rise in mobile transactions and there is also a change in what they expect from banking apps. They are now comparing banking apps not with other banking channels but with the experience they get in other apps,” said Shanti Ekambaram, president (consumer banking), Kotak Mahindra Bank.

The bank is building a host of services around its mobile applications. One feature allows customers to send money to contacts even without any information about recipient’s bank details. The recipient receives a link — either in the form of a text message or a mail — requesting bank account details and the funds are instantly credited.

The bank is also talking to third-party merchants to integrate their sites with its own app. What this means is that customers can buy flight tickets by merely selecting the flight without having to go through the payment process, which is where most of the failed transactions occur.

“We have also started hashtag-banking where customers can get their service requests fulfilled by tweeting to the bank,” said Ekambaram. The bank’s Jifi account, which integrates banking with social media, received international recognition by receiving the best new product award by Efma and Accenture in Barcelona a few months ago.

“I expect that in two years time, we will see complete end-to-end digitization of process where fulfillment will take place seamlessly. The banks can put an end-to-end process in place but the question is how long the customers will take to adapt?” said Ekambaram.

Most banks have put in place a missed-call service where customers can get a text message of their balance by merely making a missed call from their registered mobile. Similarly, most private banks have put generation of debit card and credit card PIN under the self-service mode. This has resulted in a substantial drop in use of ATM for non-cash transactions.

SBI, the country’s largest lender, has seen enrollment for mobile banking services rise and it currently has 1.25 crore customers registered for mobile banking. In 2014, the bank saw its mobile banking transactions grow 41%. The interesting part is that over 70% of these customers are from non-metro and the average value of transaction is Rs 7,052.

According to Arundhati Bhattacharya, the bank’s chairman, the recent launch of message-based banking will lead to an explosion of mobile banking in the country. She added that mobile banking is part of the bank’s aggressive strategy to decongest branches after opening 1.85 crore new accounts under the Jan-Dhan Yojana.

The two concerns over the adoption of mobile banking is to what extent illiteracy will be an impediment and concerns over security. “The Indian consumer has always surprised me with their ability to adopt technology. Whether they are literate or not, they have always been technology literate as they know which number they have to press for what transaction,” said Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, told TOI this week.

Source : http://goo.gl/b2xGv7